THE MAGELORDS ARE PLUNDERING THE CIVILIZED GALAXY, ONE PLANET AT A
TIME.

"... it's a space opera with unusual depth, and some
wonderful characters I'm eager to see in further adventures."

Carolyn Cushman, LOCUS, August 1995

THE GATHERING FLAME

The prequel to Mageworlds

by

DEBRA DOYLE AND JAMES D. MACDONALD

First their scoutships appeared above the outplanets. Raiding parties
followed, then whole armadas bent on loot and conquest. The Mages break the
warfleets that oppose them. They take entire planets. Who can stop them?

Not Perada Rosselin, Domina of Entibor. She's the absolute ruler of a
rich world and all its colonies, but Entibor's space fleet is too small to
mount a defense. And Perada herself, just back from school on distant Galcen,
is almost an outworlder in her own court.

Not Jos Metadi, the most famous -- or notorious -- of the privateers of
Innish-Kyl. Jos can fight the Mages and he can beat them one on one, but his
preferred targets are cargo vessels, not the dangerous and unprofitable ships
of war. Metadi stays clear of the Mageworlds' battle fleet -- when he can.

Not Errec Ransome. He understands the Magelords better than anyone. But
there are some things he'll never tell -- and some things that he's sworn to
himself that he'll never do again.

The Domina of Entibor obeys no law save her own...

The Gathering Flame

A Mageworlds Novel

by

Debra Doyle and James D. Macdonald

"What you have to realize, son, is that almost all of
the
people who were there at the time are dead. And everybody who's
still alive is lying to you about something."

-- General Jos Metadi to an unknown
interviewer, some
time
after the end of the First Magewar.

Galcenian Dating: 974 A. F.

Entiboran Regnal Year: 38 Veratina

Errec Ransome -- late of Ilarna, now copilot and
navigator
of Jos Metadi's Warhammer -- ran up the broad staircase
of the
Double Moon two steps at a time. In the public rooms behind
him, the sounds and smells of raucous celebration filled the air
like thick smoke. Metadi's privateers had come back again to
Waycross, and the party had just begun.

They'd had a good run this time. Nobody had
gotten blown
up -- except for Celeyn, and that was his own damned fault --
and the Mageships had dropped out of hyperspace right where
Errec had told Jos that they would: cargo ships, big and
arrogant, full of the treasures of half a hundred worlds. The
Mages hadn't expected serious trouble at a neutral planet so
close to their home territory, and they'd counted on the
warships escorting them to take care of any trouble that did
occur.

They'd been wrong. The Ophelan system was a long
way
from
the main privateering lanes. That was why the cargo ships had
chosen it for their fuel and repair stop before heading back
across the gap between the Mageworlds and the civilized galaxy.
But Ophel wasn't so far away from civilization that Jos Metadi
couldn't persuade other privateer captains to follow him there.
When the cargo ships and their escorts made the translation from
hyperspace, it wasn't just Warhammer that waited at the
drop-
points for them: it was a whole fleet.

Now that the voyage was over and the share-out
done, most
of the privateers seemed intent on spending their cut of the
proceedings as fast as possible, with the eager help of every
bartender and brothel keeper in Waycross.

Jos Metadi had already banked most of his portion
-- he
hadn't made it out of the Gyfferan slums, and into command of
his own ship, by being careless about finances -- but even he
hadn't banked it all. The Captain liked money, and with good
reason, but he also liked the undoubted pleasures that money
could buy.

The Double Moon sold most of them. Ransome was
aware,
as
he hurried up the carpeted staircase, of the seething, sweating
presence of the establishment's other patrons. He ignored the
pressure of their unspoken desires, and made his way down the
narrow, red-carpeted upstairs hall.

Translucent glow-cubes in filigree holders marked
each
door, but Errec didn't have to read the brass plate outside #7
to know that he'd found the right room. He pounded on the
polished wood with his fist -- pounded hard, because the Double
Moon had extensive soundproofing underneath its oldstyle facade
-- and shouted, "Jos! Are you in there?"

The answer came back, muffled by a treble
thickness of
wood
and insulation: "Go away, Errec. I'm busy."

"Jos, there's a girl downstairs!"

"There's a girl right here. Go away."

Errec tried again. "The one downstairs wants to
talk to
you!"

"One minute!"

Errec laughed under his breath and started back
down the
hall to the stairs. Jos was likely to take more than a minute
to disentangle himself, and somebody ought to keep the lady
amused while she was waiting.

The private room downstairs was furnished with
carved
wooden furniture upholstered in crimson velvet. The lady
herself -- fair and petite in a full-skirted gown of frosty blue
-- sat bolt upright in one of the high-backed chairs, knees
together and hands on knees. A formal mask of black velvet
covered her face from well above the eyebrows to halfway down
her cheeks. Her mouth looked young, though; surprisingly young,
for the aura that surrounded her.

Iron, thought Errec. This one is
iron.

He wondered if the two gentlemen standing with
her
realized it. They were both older than she was, but seemed to
have
little else in common beyond a firm conviction that being here
at all was a very bad mistake. One of them -- a large man, dark
and heavily muscled, with strength and training apparent even
beneath his fashionable clothing -- stood on the far side of the
room, his back against the wall, in a position that afforded a
clear view of both doors. Whatever this one's title might be,
Errec decided, his work was the selective application of
violence in the lady's interest.

The other man was slight and grey-haired, dressed
in dark
clothing plainly cut out of good cloth. He stood at the lady's
left shoulder and gazed about with a quizzical air, as if he'd
never been in a place like the Double Moon until this evening.
An old family retainer, was Errec's conjecture, keeper of the
young noblewoman's reputation . . . or at least, considering
where they all currently were, of her virtue.

In spite of Waycross's bad name for violence, the
three
carried no obvious weapons. That meant they assumed power --
and people with so much unconscious surety of their own power,
often had it.

Errec stepped across the threshold. The heavy
door swung
shut behind him. "Captain Metadi will be with you soon."

The woman nodded. Ice-blonde hair in an
elaborate set of
curled braids swayed with the motion. Her eyes behind the mask
were a bright, startling blue. She said nothing.

Errec was aware of the younger man's assessing
gaze: was
this one potential trouble, the bodyguard was wondering, or was
he a person of neither threat nor consequence? A spacehand's
coverall didn't argue for much by way of wealth or position, and
-- like the woman and her escorts -- Errec Ransome didn't carry
any obvious weapons.

He ignored the two men and spoke to the woman
directly.
"What is the nature of your request for Captain Metadi?"

The bodyguard's dark face grew even darker.
"That is a
matter for Her Dignity to discuss with the captain himself."

The bodyguard folded his arms across his chest
and set his
jaw. "Her Dignity wishes it this way."

The door to the private room opened again as they
spoke.

"You can tell Errec anything you can tell me,"
said a
familiar voice. As always, Jos Metadi's words had a strong
down-home Gyfferan twang, even when he was speaking careful
Galcenian. "He'll need to know anyway, if the 'Hammer's
going
to be part of it."

The lady spoke for the first time.

"Leave us," she said. Her voice was clear and
well-bred,
with an accent that Errec didn't recognize. Her blue eyes swept
from the dark man to Errec and back. "What I have to discuss
with Captain Metadi, I will discuss with him alone."

Her other escort, the older man who stood at her
shoulder,
looked distressed. "My lady -- "

"You too, Ser Hafrey," she said, over his
protest. Then,
turning again to Metadi, she went on. "I have hired a room,
Captain, for three hours' time. I'm told that's the usual span
you linger with a woman here."

Metadi shrugged. If he was surprised -- and to
Errec, who
was as familiar with his moods and expressions as anybody
living, he didn't seem to be -- it didn't show on his face.
"Sometimes more, sometimes less," he said. "It depends. Lead
the way."

The woman stood, her long skirt rustling with the
movement,
and crossed the room to the inner door. With her hand on the
lockplate, she paused.

Jos moved to follow her, catching Errec's eye as
he did so.
"Same thing," he said; and added, in the thick portside Gyfferan
that served as the 'Hammer's business language, "See if
anybody
on the street knows what's going on here, would you?"

Errec nodded. "There's a cafe," he replied in
the same
tongue. "The Blue Sun. I'll start there and meet you
afterward."

The Blue Sun wasn't far -- a short walk along the
noisy,
garish Strip. When he got there, the main dining room was
crowded with newly-paid free-spacers. Some of them had come to
get a cheap meal and a stiff drink before embarking on their
evening's carousal. Others -- the ones that Errec was
interested in -- were there to buy or sell things of value,
information included.

He slid into the first open booth he came to,
inspected the
menu pad, and signaled for plain bread and cheese and a mug of
the local beer. He was in the mood for something quite a bit
stronger, but it looked like he'd be holding down this booth for
quite a while.

Three hours, he thought, and laughed
again, softly,
to himself. If the lady was pretty and skillful, Jos sometimes
took all night.

Jos Metadi, more amused than not by developments
so far,
nodded at Ser Hafrey and the bodyguard and followed the young
woman into the private room. The door -- an automatic one this
time, unlike the oldstyle wooden panels that adorned the more
public areas of the Double Moon -- slid closed behind him.

The room contained a small table and two chairs,
in the
same curved and ornamented style as the furniture of the outer
chamber. Heavy brocade curtains obscured the dim alcove in one
corner. His interest, already piqued by the lady's mask and her
brace of escorts, quickened even further.

Whatever she's got in mind, he thought,
it's not
the
usual.

The lady sat down in one of the chairs, and waved
a hand at
the other. "Captain Metadi," she said. "Pray be seated, and
let us talk."

For a fraction of a second, Jos thought about
accepting her
invitation at face value. Then he decided to push things a
little instead. The lady wanted something from him; he might as
well let her know that the price wouldn't be low. He moved over
to the table and stood behind the empty chair, resting his hands
on the carved arch of its high wooden back.

"First things first. The mask has to come off.
I don't
make deals with anyone I can't see."

Her mouth curved in a faint smile under the black
velvet.
"Fair enough, I suppose."

She reached up and undid the tabs holding the
mask in
place. The black velvet slid away; she caught the mask as it
fell, and placed it on the table in front of her.

"There," she said. "Shall we proceed?"

Jos looked at her. She was younger than he'd
expected,
considering the weight of authority in her voice, with fair,
unblemished skin. The contours of her face were clean and pure,
saved from arrogance only by the warmth of her mouth and the
vivid blue of her eyes. Her brows and lashes were darker than
her hair, ash-blonde rather than ice. His glance continued
appraisingly downward. She was pleasingly buxom and he found
himself imagining -- he wrenched himself back to the present,
hoping that the track of his eyes had gone unremarked.

"I'm afraid that you have the advantage of me,"
he said,
pulling out the chair and seating himself as he spoke. "You
know me -- by name and reputation, at least. But I don't know
you."

The lady regarded him for a moment before seeming
to
come
to a decision. "Very well. I am Perada Rosselin, Domina of
Entibor, of the Far Colonies, and of the Space Between."

Entibor? thought Jos, keeping his
expression unchanged by an effort of will. Since becoming a
privateer, he had needed to learn who ruled which planets, and
something of their alliances. The whole tangled nest of them made
his head ache sometimes. Who's . . . yes, Veratina. Whoever
this is, though, she sure as hell isn't Veratina. But if the old
woman's dead . . . I thought that Veratina's heir was a
schoolgirl on Galcen.

He looked again at the lady across from him, and
revised
his estimate of her age downward by several years. At her
majority, clearly, or she wouldn't be claiming the title . . .
but closer to girl than woman. Not yet twenty, Galcenian, that
much was sure.

Don't let her age fool you, hotshot. This
girl's been
training to sign death warrants since the first day her pudgy
little fist could hold a stylus.

He leaned back in his chair. "Well, then,
Domina," he
said. "What is it that you need me to do?"

"They told me you were quite the direct man,"
said Perada.
She sounded amused. "I see that they were right."

"Deal with me honestly, and I deal honestly in
return. But
until I know what you want from me, there's nothing else I can
say."

"What I want," she said, and for the first time
hesitated,
as if marshaling her arguments. "You've made a name for
yourself, Captain Metadi, and not merely on Gyffer and Innish-Kyl
-- the newsreaders on Galcen talk about you as well. They
say you are something more than a successful pirate -- "

"Privateer," he corrected. "I bear letters of
marque and
reprisal."

A whole sheaf of them, in fact, from the
Citizen-Assembly
on Gyffer and a host of other sources, including the Galcenian
Council and the Highest of Khesat -- and Veratina Rosselin
herself, by way of House Rosselin's ambassador on Perpayne. But
if the young woman across from him didn't know that, Jos Metadi
wasn't going to tell her. Knowledge was power, and it was never
a good idea to give away power to somebody with whom you were
trying to strike a deal.

"My apologies, Captain," Perada said, her
expression
unruffled. "Privateer. And something more. If the newsreaders
don't lie -- and I have excellent sources who say that they do
not -- you have proven yourself able to meld independent raiders
into a fleet and carry the war to the enemy."

"Enemy?" Jos shook his head. "No. Enemies are
personal.
None of this is personal with me. I take prizes -- rich ones --
and I take them for the goods and merchandise they carry. If
your sources are any good, they should have mentioned that I
don't fight warships if I can help it."

"You fight when you must, and you win when you
fight."
Her
voice remained composed. "I have decided. You are the man who
will return with me to Entibor and, once there, make a warfleet
for me."

The certainty of it nettled him. "You've
decided, have
you?"

"You will be amply rewarded."

"I have enough money," he said. "And if I want
more, I
know
how to get it. I don't need to cramp my style by putting myself
under anybody else's command." He stood up. "I'm sorry, but
there's no advantage for me in taking your offer. Now, if
you'll excuse me -- "

"No," said the Domina. "I have not given you
leave."

"I didn't ask," he said. "I'm a free citizen of
Gyffer,
and nobody's subject. Which means I come and go as I please,
and right now it pleases me to go."

"Wait!"

He paused, one hand on the door. "I told you, I
don't want
money."

"Money isn't the only reward." Her blue eyes were
very
bright. She reminded him of a gambler just before the last card
went down. "Name your price, Captain. I can meet it."

"Sorry," he said. "But I don't play cards with
somebody
else's deck."

He pressed the lockplate to open the door.
Nothing
happened. He turned back to the Domina.

"I hope you're the one who set the door to lock
behind us,"
he said. "Because otherwise, I think we've got a problem."

Ser Hafrey gave the Domina and the
merchant-captain
plenty
of time to begin their discussion before he made any move to
leave. He checked the lockplate on the private room first, to
make certain that all was in order, then moved toward the outer
door.

As he did so, he ignored the other man in the
room. As
Minister of Internal Security for Entibor, Nivome do'Evaan of
Rolny shouldn't have come on this journey in the first place.
He should have stayed behind on Entibor to make ready for the
Domina's accession. But the Rolnian had insisted; had, in fact,
exerted the considerable political power of his office to force
himself onto the mission.

Perhaps it was better to keep Nivome busy close
at hand,
where his schemes for advancement could be watched and
countered, rather than leaving him to work his machinations in
the Palace undisturbed. Nevertheless, Hafrey found the
Minister's self-interest distasteful -- and felt, therefore, no
obligation to tender his associate any more than the minimum of
deference.

Stepping past Nivome, the Armsmaster opened the
door
and
glanced out into the hall. As he had expected,
Warhammer's
copilot was nowhere in sight. Hafrey stepped back into the room
and closed the door before addressing the Minister of Internal
Security directly for the first time.

Nivome didn't move from his position against the
wall.
"The Domina of Entibor should not be wandering the streets of
Waycross unprotected."

Ser Hafrey allowed himself a faint smile. "I
doubt that
she will be."

He bowed -- the slight inclination of formal
politeness,
nothing more -- and added, "Nevertheless, we must all comport
ourselves according to our inclinations. I'll wait for you at
the ship."

The Armsmaster departed from the Double Moon
without
looking back, and made a slow and introspective passage through
Waycross to the docks. All along the dockside thoroughfares,
the ranks of grounded starships waited in their bays, each
enclosure separated from the next by privacy walls looming even
taller than the ships themselves.

The gates of Warhammer's bay stood open.
From
the look of things, the Innish-Kyllan dockworkers had begun to
offload
cargo while the captain and his copilot worked off their nerves
and excess energy along the Strip.

Ser Hafrey lingered in the shadows for a while,
watching as
the skipsleds ran in empty and departed stacked high with
shrouded loads -- the pick of the loot from Metadi's Ophelan
run. The worklights mounted on top of the privacy walls were
harsh and blue-white, mimicking in their spectra the suns of
another world.

Warhammer was an ugly vessel, at
least to
the
Armsmaster's exacting eye -- a huge, flattened disk that stood
on heavy metal landing legs. Its cargo doors gaped open, with
ramps leading down to the floor of the bay. A shower of blue-
white sparks rained from the underside of the freighter, where
somebody was making repairs to the skin of the ship.

After a few minutes Hafrey moved away again,
continuing
toward his own ship: an Entiboran Crown Courier, small and fast
and discreetly armed against the day when speed alone would not
answer. He showed his identification to the scanner at the
entry forcefield and walked through the main passageway to the
bridge. Once there, he settled back in the command chair, laced
his fingers in his lap, and closed his eyes, calming himself and
bringing his thoughts into a better order.

If all went well, he told himself, matters would
proceed as
he intended. If not, then he would deal with reality as it
developed. Ser Hafrey was old -- far older than he gave others
to understand, or than he ever admitted even in his most private
thoughts -- and he had schooled himself long ago to accommodate
the universe when it decided to change itself around him.

"Whoever locked the door," Perada said, "it
wasn't me."

She regarded the captain uncertainly as she
spoke. She'd
been expecting an older man; not as old as Ser Hafrey, perhaps,
but at least someone well into the middle of life. Jos Metadi,
however, looked barely a decade older than she was herself.

Tall and tawny-haired, he wore dark trousers and
a
spidersilk shirt underneath a crimson velvet coat fastened with
massive gold buttons. An odd combination, she would have
thought -- but thanks to Ser Hafrey's preliminary report, she
knew that rich, almost gaudy, clothing was the traditional mark
of a prominent captain, an advertisement of his success in the
same way that the heavy blaster, its holster tied down to his
thigh, was a mark of his violent profession.

Metadi had come a long way in a short time, then,
and he
wanted to go even farther. A good sign, she hoped. Just the
same, he was an untried quality. Veratina's court on Entibor
hadn't contained anyone like him; neither had the finishing
school on Galcen. She drew a careful breath and tried for a
note of careful detachment.

"You say we might have a problem?"

He glanced at her again and nodded. "I'm not
sure if
you're the target, or if I am, or if it's the two of us together
-- but I'm feeling more like someone has me locked and tracking
with firecontrol than makes me comfy."

"Oh." At least, she reflected, Captain Metadi
had spoken
of "we" and "us." Maybe there was a chance she could bring him
around after all.

Great-aunt 'Tina would be furious -- the Head
of House
Rosselin taking a Gyfferan nobody for Consort!

She was willing to go that far if she had to.
Ser Hafrey
hadn't approved of the idea when she'd broached it to him on the
hyperspace run to Innish-Kyl, but he knew better than to gainsay
the Domina on a dynastic matter.

Captain Jos Metadi was not, after all, simply a
Gyfferan
nobody. His family and his early history might be untraceable
-- if Ser Hafrey said that a man's lineage was obscure, no
conventional records check was going to provide the information
-- but his current fame and his known accomplishments were
matters of established fact. Jos Metadi was, by anybody's
reckoning, the foremost captain among the privateers of
Innish-Kyl,
and the only one who had proved consistently able to bring
other ships under his command.

If he can do it for a rabble of pirates,
she told
herself, he can do it for me.

Meanwhile, the Captain was rummaging under the
tapestries
that covered the walls of the private room.

"Damned thing's back here somewhere," she heard
him
mutter
under his breath. He let the tapestry drop back against the
wall. "I wasn't counting on a room with only one way out."

"My fault, I'm afraid. Ser Hafrey insisted --
the better
to control the circumstances of our discussion, he said."

"I hope he hasn't controlled us right into a
bloody
ambush," Metadi commented. His Gyfferan accent was stronger
than it had been, and there was an edge to his voice that hadn't
been there when he came in. "I suppose he insisted on scanning
the room for spy-eyes and snoop-buttons?"

"Of course," she said. "But there weren't any."

"No electronics." Metadi was prowling about the
perimeter
of the room, looking for she didn't know what. "Then how would
they . . . hah!"

He'd come to the alcove with the bed, where heavy
curtains
swagged across the entrance partly hid and partly revealed the
cushioned interior. He seized the fabric of the curtains with
one hand and jerked it aside. Light came into the alcove from
the glowcubes that illuminated the room itself, and Perada saw
with a faint sense of shock that the entire back wall of the
alcove was a single large mirror.

She blinked, and swallowed. "What? Surely you
don't --
not now?"

Metadi wasn't listening. He picked up one of the
high-
backed wooden chairs, lifted it over his head, and threw it
full-force into the alcove. The chair hit the mirror with a
tremendous splintering crash. Shards of silver-backed glass
fell down like spangles onto the bed below. Where the mirror
had been, Perada saw an empty hole -- and beyond that, a small
room with walls of dead black, and a pale, clerkish-looking man
with an expression of intense surprise on his otherwise
unremarkable face.

"One-way glass," said Metadi. He'd drawn that
heavy
blaster she'd noticed earlier, and was pointing it at the clerk
-- which explained, Perada thought, why the man hadn't made any
attempt to run away. "I expect that news of our chat is all
over Innish-Kyl by now. In a week most of the civilized galaxy
will know about it. In two, even the Magelords will know."

"You expected something like this, didn't you?"

"Let's say it doesn't surprise me very much."

By now, Metadi was inside the black-walled
cubicle,
presenting the frightened clerk with a close-range view of his
blaster. "Maybe our friend here is nothing but a random pervert
who bought himself an evening at the peep-show -- but it's a lot
more likely that he's a paid spy."

The clerk turned even paler than before. "No,
no. . . ."

"A pervert, then," said Metadi. "In that case,
gentlesir,
it will only increase your enjoyment if I tie you securely
before we go."

He glanced about the little room, frowning
slightly. Perada
thought that he seemed to be looking for something.

"The curtain ropes," she said. "Will those do?"

"Good thinking. Pull 'em down."

The ropes were thick and sturdy underneath their
velvet
casings. Perada worked quickly, and soon had an armful of them
ready to pass across the glass-strewn bed to Captain Metadi, who
holstered his blaster and set about binding and gagging the
unfortunate clerk.

"There," he said when he was done. He looked
down at the
clerk, now trussed and tied like a fowl for the roasting. "I
wouldn't struggle, by
the way, if I were you. You'll only strangle yourself."